LINGUIST List 13.833

Tue Mar 26 2002

Diss: Computational Ling: Tschichold "Multi-word..."

Editor for this issue: Karolina Owczarzak <karolinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Cornelia.Tschichold, Computational Ling: Tschichold "Multi-word units"

New Dissertation Abstract

Institution: University of Basel
Program: English Department
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 1998
Author: Cornelia I Tschichold 

Dissertation Title: 
Multi-word units in natural language processing

Linguistic Field: 
Lexicography, Computational Linguistics

Subject Language: 
English

Dissertation Director 1: D. J. Allerton
Dissertation Director 2: Marc Domenic


Dissertation Abstract: 

A computational lexicon for natural language processing needs to deal
not only with simple words, but also with lexemes consisting of more
than one orthographic word. Multi-word lexemes such as idioms,
phrasal verbs, and collocations display different degrees of
flexibility concerning their morphology and syntax. In the context of
NLP applications, it is vital to know which modifications are possible
for each idiom (as this will determine whether both an idiomatic and a
literal reading are possible) and to express these acceptable
variations in an appropriate way. The present work describes the
linguistic specification of English multi-word units in Word Manager,
a system for reusable morphological dictionaries developed at the
University of Basel. Word Manager makes it possible to express and
integrate this description with a morphological lexicon database. The
detailed description of the classes of multi-word units in English is
the first full-scale application of this part of the Word Manager
formalism.